Monthly Archives: September 2014

Touching

I’ve just spent an hour sitting beside Jody’s bed, holding her head and shoulder.  She’s crying a lot about her cancer and her life.  As Jody’s hair has been coming back over the past few weeks, I’ve enjoyed rubbing her head, letting my fingers flow through her hair.  Not this morning, though.  Just holding feels right.

Often in the past, I’ve sent loving thoughts to Jody as I’ve held her.  A personal beam of energy aimed from one being to another.  Not this morning.  Sometimes I’ve practiced tonglen as I touch her, consciously taking in her pain on my inbreath and sending out love on the outbreath.  But again, not this morning.  Instead it’s just the contact, unmediated by thought or intention.  It’s like walking on a coarse sand beach and coming upon a pocket of the finest grains.  Not really better, I guess, just different, and what I’m drawn towards today.

I think of human touch, and the difference between the hand being still and the hand moving.  I’ve received a lot of hugs in my life, and the ones I’ve loved have been still, rather than feeling that the other person was rubbing the skin off my back, or pounding me to a pulp.

On the other hand, Jody has enjoyed me scratching her back, getting all the itches out.  She’s often marvelled at how I can find the spots that are driving her nuts.  And one of our favourite activities has been Jody lying on the couch while I rub her feet.  So movement of my hand can be pretty special too.

Then there’s the amount of pressure applied.  Some of the hugs I’ve received have been crushing.  This morning it’s been a gentle holding.  No thought about how much is too much, just me wanting to touch my wife, and the details falling into place.

Holding hands is such a comfort, with the touch being just firm enough for communion.  Jody and I have wandered many of life’s paths hand-in-hand.  Such a blessing to have a life partner for silent strolling.

As Jody likely continues to decline, what can I give her?  Some words of love, yes.  The meeting of our eyes, yes.  And holding her close, yes.

 

 

Francis

St. Francis of Assisi wrote this lovely poem, which was later paired with a soaring melody.  Sometime in the 1970s, I attended a Catholic retreat in Lethbridge, Alberta, sleeping in a high school gym.  We were awakened each morning by a choir of angel volunteers, giving us the sweetest daybreak songs.  Later in the day, retreatants and volunteers would channel Francis in singing these words.  It was sublime.  Spirit filled the room.

Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love,
Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in You

Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there’s despair in life let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness – only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy

Oh Master, grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all men that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life

Oh Master, grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love,
Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in You

I would like to sit with Francis in Tim Horton’s, enjoying tea and a muffin.  Having it be okay if no words were shared for a time.  Listening when he speaks.  Letting my own words spill out unrehearsed.  Just being together.  No one the better, no one the worse.  One wiser, I’m sure, but that’s okay.  Both of us tapping into the world’s wisdom, indeed being channels for it.  Not smart or clever or special or renowned.

Just tea for two
And two for tea
Just me for you
And you for me

No Sleep

Late one evening at the end of January, Jody was transported by ambulance from the St. Thomas Hospital to Victoria Hospital in London, so that her collapsed lung could be treated better.  We arrived in Emergency and stayed there for some time until her bed was ready in the Thoracics unit.

I stayed with Jody overnight, mind racing, heart throbbing, doing whatever needed to be done.  Mostly just “being with” my lovely wife.  As morning broke, and my head was getting fuzzy, I realized that I had been awake for 24 hours.  And still there was stuff to do, people to meet, Jody to love.

As the clock struck noon, I was really fading.  A nurse would say something to me, and it just wouldn’t register.  People would walk by the room and they started looking like ghosts.  I thought about driving home to Union for some shut-eye.  I remember fingering Hugo’s keys in my pocket, truly in a state of absent mind, until I clued in to that being a ridiculous and dangerous course of action.

I could feel my mind collapsing, and I just had enough brain cells left to phone Rachelle, a friend of ours, and ask if I could get some sleep at her place.  She was happy to help.  We arranged a time for her to pick me up.

I wobbled my way from the nursing unit down to the Emergency waiting room, marginally conscious of people looking at me.  Oh so dully, I wondered if they thought I was drunk.  I spoke to someone to prove I wasn’t, and God only knows what came out of my mouth.

In the waiting room, I tried to focus on the conversation between an elderly woman and her daughter a couple of rows away, but it was a foreign language to me.  And I was nodding, then jerking myself up before my body would have hit the floor.

Finally Rachelle, smiling at me.  Good grief, what was she so happy about?  I told her I was in trouble but that didn’t faze her.  From the passenger seat of her car, I surveyed a strangely unfamiliar London as we headed west on Commissioners Road and then swirled through a bunch of side streets.

I think we sat at her kitchen table a bit, and I think I drank something, but I don’t really know.  Rachelle led me to a guest room in the basement, and I pretty much fell into bed.  Some inside voice said “You can’t sleep in your clothes” so I struggled with buttons and zippers before falling onto the pillow again.  It was 5:00 pm.

Five minutes later, I was still awake.  I sat up, terrified.  “I’m going to die of no sleep!”  That I remember – exactly those words.  “I have to find Rachelle and tell her I’m dying!”  It was so real.  I was dying.  I pressed down on the mattress to get up and tell her … and then collapsed back on the bed. Breathing fast and shallow.  Eyes stunned open.  Hands shaking ……

And then sleep … for many hours.

And today, I remain alive.  Having had a glimpse of oblivion.  Oh my.

 

Happiness

So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness
With sadness there is something to rub against
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up
Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change
But happiness floats
It doesn’t need you to hold it down
It doesn’t need anything
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing
And disappears when it wants to
You are happy either way
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
And now live over a quarry of noise and dust
Cannot make you unhappy
Everything has a life of its own
It too could wake up filled with possibilities
Of coffee cake and ripe peaches
And love even the floor which needs to be swept
The soiled linens and scratched records
Since there is no place large enough
To contain so much happiness
You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
Into everything you touch.  You are not responsible
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
For the moon, but continue to hold it, and to share it
And in that way, be known

One more time, I don’t know who wrote this.  Thank you whoever and wherever and whenever you are.  You could be a monk living in 200 BC or you could be a commuter on yesterday’s subway in Toronto.  No matter.  All that’s important is whether I’ll learn from you.

I agree with the author that when you’re truly happy there’s nothing to rub against, no cause staring back at you in our day-to-day world.  Of course good things happen to us (“I got a _____”,  “_____ loves me”, “I accomplished _____”) but those don’t touch the essence of happiness.   Somehow, it comes from within (or from … somewhere), uncaused.  It is by grace that it touches us.  And so we float.

At this depth of knowing, my neighbour’s happiness, my co-worker’s, my “enemy’s”, is mine as well.  Their smile has no power to diminish mine.  And when I have troubles at work, or my back hurts, or the dog ate my homework, those are only ripples on the surface.  Far beneath is the cool unmoving benediction of peace.

It is true, I believe, that the body is too small a container for this happiness.  It has to leak out – from the mouth, from the eyes, from the hands.  And those dribbles turn into rivulets … creeks … streams … rivers … reaching everyone within eyesight and earshot.  Reaching them on some level anyway, maybe not consciously.

And the source of this boundless happiness is unknown.  We don’t earn it.  We aren’t any type of chosen one.  It falls as gentle rain onto upturned hands.

No One Left Out

When I’m driving on the west edge of St. Thomas, I come upon a meadow that borders Kettle Creek.  For many years, four horses have graced that field, and they like hanging out close to each other.  There’s a tall black fellow, a mid-sized black one, a medium one with dark brown patches on white, and a honey-coloured Shetland pony.  I look forward to seeing them every morning I’m on the road.

Once in awhile there are only three horses enjoying each other’s company. And that hurts me.  I get scared.  Has the fourth one died?  Maybe they’re sick inside the barn.  Maybe their owner has taken them to some wide open pasture, and my friend is getting to run and frolic.  Whatever’s happened, the fourth one always returns in a couple of days.  And I breathe easy again.

It’s just not right when one of the group is missing.  The circle is not complete, and I feel sad.

It seems that this is a recurring theme in my life.  I remember how much it hurt one time in my teenage years when I was hanging out with two friends, Mary and Brian. We were sitting at a round table.  I’d say things to Mary, but mostly she’d direct her comments to Brian.  It was such a vivid experience of being third wheel, and that sorrow has never entirely left me.  So my heart breaks when I see others live through exclusion or absence.

I’m thinking now of a Grade 6 girl.  Bonnie was enthralled with a certain boy band, especially its lead singer.  Many a time when she spoke to the class, she would work in a comment about her heroes.  The rest of the students quickly tired of her obsession … and she was ostracized, subtly at times, blatantly at others.  And I was sad.  Once again our circle was broken.

And then there was the gentleman in the meditation hall, a very large guy who brought with him a rubber cushion, which he placed on his chair.  Any slight movement and we heard the squeak.  Also he moved fast, stepped heavily and plunked his glasses down loudly on the window sill next to him.  The looks from some other retreatants held a clear message – you’re not welcome here.  More sadness.

The theme continues inside me.  Jody and I have been watching lots of episodes from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” on our laptop, her from the hospital bed, me from a chair.  I’d missed the last three or four, and when I started watching again I noticed that the young ensign Wesley Crusher was nowhere to be seen.  He wasn’t on the bridge.  He wasn’t in Ten Forward, the ship’s lounge.  He wasn’t even in the credits.  And the same reaction from me: I miss him and I’m worried about him.  All for a TV character from 1990.

I smile at myself sometimes.  Hopelessly sentimental?  Overly sensitive?  Naw … just me.

 

 

Trees

They just stand there.  No goals, no fears, no deficiencies.  Just perfect in the moment, every moment.  When I need a reminder to simply be, I look at a tree.

A bit east of us on Bostwick Road (Home Road), a very tall deciduous tree welcomes me every time I pass by.  The diameter of its trunk must be five feet.  Part of me wants to know the type of tree it is, but alas, naming things is not one of my strong suits.  And actually, it’s not even an alas.  My friend big guy opens me up when I linger a moment.  His or her name could be Bob or Carol or Ted or Alice … no matter.  He just is.  The fact that he looms so high above me is fine.  There’s no sense of better or worse, bigger or smaller.

Another friend hangs out on the east side of Highway Road as I venture north to London.  On a slight curve, his leaves and branches spread wide, falling at the edges down towards the earth.  Not so lofty, this fellow.  But just about perfectly symmetrical.  The balance draws me in, and in my moments of awareness, I say “Hello, lovely tree.”  He or she smiles back.

In 1969, 1974, 1975 and 1976, another tree helped me keep going.  I was working those summers in the superheated laundry building of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.  The sheet mangle was just about mangling me, with sweat usually pouring off my brow.  When the dizziness and exhaustion came, I looked out one of the windows to gaze upon a straggly pine, gnarled by the wind.  It was slightly uphill to that tree, and I knew that just past it, the ground sloped down to a view of Waterton Lake and the surrounding mountains – a vista for the gods.  I knew that something marvelous was just beyond my physical sight, and the laundry tree was my conduit for touching it.

Listen to the trees, Bruce.  Listen.

The Bodhisattva

Bodhisattva: a being (sattva) committed to liberation (bodhi)

So simple.  And yet not at all simple to do

***

The Bodhisattva Vows

Suffering beings are numberless.  I vow to liberate them all
Attachment is inexhaustible.  I vow to release it all
The gates to truth are numberless.  I vow to master them all
The way of awakening is supreme.  I vow to realize it fully

How illogical to think that you could free every single human being from suffering.  And yet … ?   Then how about being attached to nothing and no one, letting them all come into your life and later leave?  Plus staying open to all the sources of wisdom that are embraced across the world, rather than accepting only one

***

Each bodhisattva has delayed her or his departure from the world of samsara until beings everywhere are free of suffering

Samsara means a circular, repetitive existence on this planet, being reborn lifetime after lifetime, making mistakes and suffering each time, learning oh so slowly what we need to.  Am I willing to come back again and again to assist others, rather than accepting a freedom that is well earned?

***

In simple acts of kindness and gestures of cheerfulness, bodhisattvas are functioning everywhere, not as special saintly beings, but in helpful ways we may barely recognize

That woman smiling at you
That man letting you take the parking space
That child doing their best to bake you a cake

***

Bodhisattvas usually are unknown and anonymous rather than celebrities, and function humbly and invisibly all around us, expressing kindness and generosity in simple, quiet gestures

If they’re all around us, I wonder how many of them I see every day

***

Bodhisattvas are extraordinary wondrous beings, bestowing blessings on all wretched, confused, petty creatures.  Bodhisattvas are living in your neighborhood, waiting to say “Good morning” to you

I’m going to see every person who says “Good morning” to me as a bodhisattva.  Perhaps they are.  Perhaps they aren’t.  It doesn’t matter

***

Mohini and Me

Mohini was a regal white tiger who lived for many years at the Washington, D.C. National Zoo.  For most of those years, her home was in the old lion house – a typical twelve-by-twelve-foot cage with iron bars and a cement floor.  Mohini spent her days pacing restlessly back and forth in her cramped quarters.  Eventually, biologists and staff worked together to create a natural habitat for her.  Covering several acres, it had hills, trees, a pond and a variety of vegetation.  With excitement and anticipation, they released Mohini into her new and expansive environment.  But it was too late.  The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life.  Mohini paced and paced in that corner until an area twelve-by-twelve feet was worn bare of grass.

Aren’t we all regal?  But usually we don’t see the truth about ourselves and others.  We see but a tiny part of the whole being – the surface part.  Too often we believe that our environment – all that is outside of our skin – causes who we are.  There seems to be a 12 x 12 cage hemming us in.  For me, in my worst moments, it’s more like a full length cardboard box has been dropped over my head.  I can’t move.  I certainly can’t dance.  And the fiction I create is that someone else, or something else, has covered me.  Truthfully, I am the dropper.  And so I pace.

When someone like the Dalai Lama, or Gina Sharpe, or Jiddu Krishnamurti, points to a vastness beyond my past experience, I’ve opened my eyes only a bit.  A glimpse here and there of something big, and then I fall back into my old ways.  But life seems to be a spiral, and the opportunity for future opening comes around again and again.  And so I emerge.

What are the moments that have drawn me to the hills and forests of life?

1.  Letting myself wander into Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver after witnessing an evening performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in an old stone church.  Sitting under a tree, rocking back and forth for an hour or more, singing the title song

2.  Sitting at the back of the meditation hall, listening to Gina Sharpe speak, and feeling her love fill the room

3.  On an outdoor education trip in the Alberta wilderness, warming up a member of our small group, helping her back from the edge of hypothermia

4.  Singing “For You” to my lovely wife Jodiette, and playing my guitar, as she lies in bed

5.  Sitting with a Grade 6 girl on the school playground, holding my hand over a deep cut on her calf, waiting for medical help to arrive

6.  Holding a young man as an epileptic seizure rocks through him, making sure he doesn’t hit his head

7.  Dressing up as Santa Claus for the kids at the hospital, ho-ho-hoing as countless young humans take turns sitting on my lap

8.  Standing at the prow of the M.V. Lady Rose on the way from Port Alberni, BC, out to Bamfield on the Pacific shore, letting the waves crash over me

9.  Touching my rock in Barre, Massachusetts, feeling the pain of All Beings Everywhere and giving them my love

 ***

Hello, Mohini.  Please come with me.  The big wide world beckons us both

A Course in Miracles

This work was published in 1976. An “inner voice” dictated the content to a psychologist named Helen Schucman.  Although it’s Christian in tone, many have said that the Course points toward universal wisdom.  I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Here are some quotes:

I am responsible for what I see
I choose the feelings I experience
And I decide upon the goal I would achieve
And everything that seems to happen to me
I ask for and receive as I have asked

Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists
Herein lies the peace of God

I rule my mind, which I alone must rule
At times, it does not seem I am its king at all
It seems to triumph over me
And tell me what to think
And what to do and feel
And yet it has been given me to serve
Whatever purpose I perceive in it
My mind can only serve
Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit
To employ as He sees fit
I thus direct my mind
Which I alone can rule
And thus I set it free
To do the will of God

There is no more self-contradictory concept
Than that of “idle thoughts”
What gives rise to the perception of a whole world
Can hardly be called idle
Every thought you have
Contributes to truth or to illusion
Either it extends the truth
Or it multiplies illusions

What would you see?
The choice is given you
But learn and do not let your mind
Forget this law of seeing
You will look upon that which you feel within
If hatred finds a place within your heart
You will perceive a fearful world
Held cruelly in death’s sharp-pointed bony fingers
If you feel the Love of God within you
You will look out on a world of mercy and of love

Reality brings only perfect peace
When I am upset
It is always because I have replaced reality
With illusions I made up

The world that seems to hold you prisoner
Can be escaped by anyone
Who does not hold it dear

When you have learned to look on everyone
With no reference at all to the past
Either his or yours as you perceive it
You will be able to learn from what you see now

Seek not outside yourself
The search implies you are not whole within

It is your thoughts alone
That cause you pain
Nothing external to your mind
Can hurt or injure you in any way
There is no cause beyond yourself
That can reach down and bring oppression
No one but yourself affects you
There is nothing in the world
That has the power to make you ill or sad
Or weak or frail
But it is you who have the power
To dominate all things you see
By merely recognizing what you are

Only your mind can produce fear

You will fear what you attack

No one who loves can judge
And what he sees is free of condemnation

The real world is attained simply
By the complete forgiveness of the old

Teach only love
For that is what you are

When you meet anyone
Remember it is a holy encounter
As you see him you will see yourself
As you treat him you will treat yourself
As you think of him you will think of yourself

Is it an evil to be punished or a mistake to be corrected?

You heal a brother by recognizing his worth

You cannot know your own perfection
Until you have honored
All those who were created like you

There is no journey
But only an awakening

Your task is not to seek for love
But merely to seek and find
All of the barriers within yourself
That you have built against it

With love in you
You have no need except to extend it

Remember that you came
To bring the peace of God into the world

Why wait for Heaven?
Those who seek the light
Are merely covering their eyes
The light is in them now
Enlightenment is but a recognition
Not a change at all

Simply do this:
Be still, and lay aside all thoughts
Of what you are and what God is
All concepts you have learned about the world
All images you hold about yourself
Empty your mind of everything
It thinks is either true or false
Or good or bad
Of every thought it judges worthy
And all the ideas of which it is ashamed
Hold onto nothing
Do not bring with you one thought
The past has taught, nor one belief
You ever learned before from anything
Forget this world
Forget this course
And come with wholly empty hands unto your God

Just Folks

Two guys, one Canadian and one Tibetan.  Both well known in their fields.  Both just like you and me.  Both kind.

I read in the London Free Press this morning about George Canyon, a country singer from High River, Alberta.  London has one of its big annual events on right now – the Western Fair.  George was supposed to sing outdoors last night but the heavens opened up and the show was cancelled.  Many fans had been waiting in the rain for George to begin.

Fair organizers then set up a session for George and his fans at a comedy club in one of the fair buildings.  He would shake hands with a few people, for a few minutes.  And then bye bye.  Except the officials didn’t really get what type of person George was.

Mr. Canyon picked up his guitar and started playing for the wet but drying out faithful.  He took requests.  He chatted at length with the crowd.  “After about 20 songs, Canyon put the guitar down and stayed until he met everyone who wanted to have their picture taken with him, or an autograph.”

***

Years ago, the Dalai Lama was staying at a San Francisco hotel while he participated in a conference.  On the day he was leaving, he asked the manager to have all the on-duty employees gather in the hotel parking lot.

“The Dalai Lama walked down the line, greeting each person, smiling, looking in their eyes, thanking them for their service.  Many people wept.  Many looked at him completely enraptured.  At no time did I get the impression that his attention was wandering or that he would rather have been somewhere else.  Without exception, he was fully attentive to each person as he met them.  The effect of this wholehearted presence was remarkable.”

 ***

There’s nothing I can think of to add
Our actions say it all